Final Score: Boston Red Sox 3, Texas Rangers 2A breakdown of tonight's game, in pictures:
Do you see this man, to the left of this paragraph? Do you know how pissed he was tonight? Coming out, Opening Day, throwing that bush league crap for four innings? And then he starts out the game with a home run to Frank "Journeyman" Catalanotto? The Rangers should have been quaking in their unis after that at-bat and with reason: Schilling's line of four hits, one walk and one run over seven innings, with a side dish of six strikeouts, ate lightening and crapped excellence. He was so worked up by the end that he lingered in the dugout after seventh inning, waiting for his chance to come out and finish up the game. Emotion aside, Schilling has had some nice (4 and 0 record) success versus Texas, so tonight's performance isn't the be-all, end-all proof of the ace's return, but damn, looking hot tonight.
Need to score some runs? Then you'll need to call on my man pictured to the left. While most of the league's power hitters are struggling to get started, Big Papi broke out of his slump with authority, smashing home runs in his first and third at-bats to score the Sox only runs.Speaking of slumps, I have a theory on the slow start to the hitting: has anyone noticed how cold it's been across most of the country recently? Cold nights in KC and Texas don't help hitters get into a groove when they've spent the past month plus in warm Florida. We may be relying on pitching until spring finally kicks into gear.
Speaking of pitching, we will speak no more of this guy until he redeems himself for forcing greater men to pick up the sacred charge he let fall into the dust. The bullpen shakiness from yesterday carried over into the eighth inning today: walk, walk, bunt single to load the bases, panic rising, Schilling's marvelous effort starting to fade away like a baseball version of Marty McFly's family photo, sharp ground ball (off Lopez) by Nelson Cruz that erased the man at second, but scored a run and left the tying run smirking ninety feet away from ignominy and potential defeat...shame, shame and more shame. Until the Papal-Bon came to the mound.
This. Man. Is. The. Balls. With one out and runners at the corners, Papelbon came in to face Texas's two toughest hitters, shining as he came like a beacon of hope and awesomeness in the dark night of RSN early season despair and the oncoming rush of the Texas sweep brooms. Needing but fifteen pitches to accomplish his sacred work, Paps garnered three strikeouts, smoked Michael Young with fastballs, terrified Hank Blaylock with splitters and left Brad Wilkerson so devastated with his badassery that the man could not swing at the final pitch as it blazed by at 96 miles per hour.Although ESPN was more interested in showing Terry Francona splitting sunflower seeds (enjoying his careful bullpen management, no doubt) and closeups of Papelbon's pre-pitch sneer than Varitek's pitch selection, I did catch a few of the location choices and all of Tek's setups and noticed something interesting: although Papelbon didn't hit all of his spots with his fastball tonight (not that it mattered), when it came to the kill pitch on all three strikeouts, the ball hit the glove exactly where Varitek wanted it to be. I'm not sure this rising level of control means anything, but it struck me as interesting; anyone have any insight they'd like to share?
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